


A Dreamer, A Wisher, A Liar

by halreyn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Devious!Sherlock, Discipline, Drug Use, John being Loyal, Loyalty, M/M, Obedience, Political Manipulations, Romance, Sexual Content, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Shifter!John, Slavery, Submission, Wild!John, Worldbuilding, prince!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:17:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halreyn/pseuds/halreyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"John’s throat tightens, but he doesn’t shake the Captain’s hand off.  Quick to heel and fast to obey, they call him. Seventeen years in the army, sold off without a thought all because of a limp in his leg". </p>
<p>Shifter!John is sold to Prince!Sherlock, who has plans to overthrow his uncle King!Moriarty. Sherlock plans to make thorough use of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fade Away, Into the Forest Dim

**Author's Note:**

> Some worldbuilding drawn from FFXII (minimal, really). These characters don't belong to me ;) my first story ever, so let me know whether you think this is worth continuing!

Someone gasps wetly, and John realizes that it’s him. The desert sun is blinding in his eyes. It keeps been blinding, all the way through, until the medics come over and put him under.

\--

The army doesn't keep useless shifters. He’s discharged from the army at the gates of Arcadia. They let him keep his clothes and photographs, but bundle it up in a small bag that they pass to the slavers. John tries to catch a glimpse of Arcadia, of what may be the last glance of his city, but the gleaming walls that tower over him and entirely block his view. Several boys, probably monkey shifters, perch on top of the walls, scrubbing busily at them. He wonders what happens when they grow too old for this work. Will they be sold off like him? Who buys old, useless shifters?

He figures he’s grown too soft out there in the desert, if he really doesn’t know the answers to these questions.

Captain Roderiguez comes over, unhooking his chain and passing it personally to the slavers. “Treat this man well,” he orders the slaver, discreetly slipping a few coins into the man’s palm. The man – a bald, dark-skinned Hume, nods. “He won’t give you any trouble,” the Captain promises, hand tightening on John’s shoulder. “Raised in the army since he was a young’un. Always quick to heel and fast to obey. Never misuses this strength of his. Make sure to mention that to buyers, Maki. This one must go to a good home. He doesn’t deserve anything less.” John’s throat tightens, but he doesn’t shake the Captain’s hand off. _Quick to heel and fast to obey_. Seventeen years in the army, sold off without a thought all because of a limp in his leg. Some remnants of loyalty to his Captain keeps him still, even though all he wants to do is to throw the chain away and run. He bets he can outrun all these humes, even with this bad leg of his.

Head down, he follows as the slaver leads him away.

\--

He stays in the slave market for two days before Sherlock comes. It’s not too bad. They sleep in long tents, because tents are easier to clean than barracks, and the smell isn’t anywhere as bad. Their collars, keyed to carefully painted glyphs that mark the shape of a small cell, keep them in place. It’s just a bit nippy at night, but for John, who’s used to desert nights, it’s nothing to be concerned about. The slavers even give them a ragged, threadbare blanket each.

John eats when he’s told, sleeps as much as he can and does not talk to the shifters around him. He just wants to stay out of trouble. It’s just that the waiting drives him crazy. John knows that his options aren’t too bad. Even with the limp in his leg, he’s still young and physically fit enough to do a decent job as a gatekeeper or a brawler in a tavern. His spotless army records gives him some credibility, always important in security jobs. He’s miles ahead of some of the others, like the older shifters they keep to the back of the tent. But he also knows that with the wrong master, it could mean the end of him. A few more wasted years, another crippled limb… the worse thing about it, John thinks, is that he’s kind of expecting it. The day where he’s no longer useful.

This day, the bald slaver – Demitrios, the rest call him – walks down the row and selects a few shifters to follow him. He takes John and both his neighbours, as well as a few others in his cluster. John’s curiosity is piqued. They group slaves by sectors, he knows. The younger, stronger males are where he’s placed in. Over the past few days, he noticed that they take some slaves out for private showings, but never a group like this. Someone wants a bulk buy, he figures. But who? Smaller outfits, like town councils or city militia, can’t afford anything like this. Perhaps a private mercenary company.

\--

They take them out to a reserve near the city, instructs them to shift. John drops to his fours and shifts. The change ripples over him; he’s done it enough to barely flinch as bones snap and reform, and his skin doesn’t even tear now. In wolf form now, he lifts his snout to take in the scents of the forest. It’s his first real smell of Arcadia in five years, and the scent, heavy with rich earth and pines, heady with the crisp smell of fresh water, makes him yip in pleasure. He wants to flop to the ground and rub this scent into himself, carry it around like a talisman. This is good land.

The slaver whistles sharply. John snaps to attention. Rodriguez had done the same to John, used whistles to tell him come and heel or guard or watch or, more commonly, attack. Demitrios makes them wait, shoving his hand downwards to tell them to sit.

He smells opium, tingling, and his jaw drops open to pant. They had it in the desert, sometimes, and in wolf-form, the smell is actually noticeable. It’s a sweet, heavy – feeling, like a hand pressing on his head, rubbing slowly and thoroughly behind his ears. He shakes his head to clear it, but the feeling only gets stronger. The wolf beside him whines, dropping his head to his paws as it struggles through the last throes of its change. Its limbs are particularly matted with blood, suggesting that this wolf is a young one who hasn’t been able to stop thrashing during the pain of the change. If he could, he would grasp the scruff of its neck, holding it down until it relaxed and let the change roil through its limbs. Later, John promises himself. During the change back.

One human dumps a tall censer of incense in front of his nose. He flinches back, only realising then that he had been creeping closer to the wolf. He turns away, whining. The opium smell is a full-blown assault now. He wants to flop down on his belly and give in, float away. Hazily he spies the glint of other censers through the thick haze the censers are spewing. John has never seen so much opium being burnt at once before, in his entire life.

Humes are cruel and brutal, but they aren’t stupid. They know the effect opium has on wolf shifters; John has heard of brothels, shifter brothels where they hang burners of opium above the beds, so the shifters will be open and pliant. Why would they be using it at teatime entertainment, in doses he didn’t even know was possible? To see wolves blunder around blindly? As he watches, wolves walk into one another, snapping weakly but too dazed to do anything else.

John’s body tells him how vulnerable he is now. How soft and stupid his body is becoming. He makes himself hold his breath, staggering single-mindedly towards the edge of the clearing and the promise of cleaner air. He uses his bigger weight to shove away wolves in his path. A pothole gets him down, makes him suck in a terrified breath of air, but he quickly shifts his weight onto his hindquarters and backs out and away from it. The grass, once soothing and calming, is prickly and threatening underfoot, hiding dangers he can’t see because he’s too damn blind now, senses too full from the opium.

A whip snaps at him. Ironically, that blow, meant to terrify, snaps him momentarily awake. They want him to go back. John’s mind floods with stories of how people used to put wolf communities down before they invented the collars; lock them in chambers flooded with opium, picked them off easy with shotguns or hatchets. He’s shaking, not quite sure if it’s from fear or tiredness. He makes to turn away, whining, then tears savagely at the part of his shoulder that he can reach and tears away, riding the clarity granted by the pain. Someone shouts. John keeps running, relishing the jolts of pain that shoot up his leg to his bleeding shoulder. The smell of blood is iron, tangy, alive, summoning adrenaline that wakes John up.

Then the collar flares – it’s like getting touched by electricity. The current runs through him, jerking his limbs out of shape so wildly he thinks he’s going to change back. It starts at his neck, cutting off air, then forcibly folds his limbs under him, collapsing him in a spindly heap.

There are footsteps, unsure and rough. John tenses, but the collar – he’s locked away, and the rest of his body is a limp mess. There’s a voice, warm, admiring. “Brilliant,” the voice says. It becomes a hand, soft, on his head, trailing down his snout. It’s white and pale and pokes at his nose, then delves into his black, slack jaw to press against John’s teeth and – and - the hand presses, strokes down his tongue. It comes away slick with saliva. John can't even whine.

“Good boy," the voice murmurs, soft. Satisfied. Checks his collar, smooths a thumb over his name. "Good boy, John."


	2. The Caged Bird Sings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock has an uncanny ability to call up all of John's demons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg so much love! Thanks so much ;)

 But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he opens his mouth to sing.

-Maya Angelou

 

\--

Sherlock sits by John-the-wolf through his tremors, presses his face to John’s and breaths, until John’s breathing slows and it’s like they’re sharing breaths, two people falling away from the world, narrowing it down to inhales-and-exhales.

John is docile when Sherlock leads him away, deeper into the forest. He’s still docile when they walk up into a wooden pavilion, constructed out of nothing but gleaming slats of wood. It’s low-slung and gorgeous, like the trees banded together and built a natural harbour for men.

He remains docile when Sherlock makes him change back and sit with a few other shifters he vaguely recognizes from the tent, collared much like he is. But when Sherlock begins to ask them all questions, indulgent and smiling, like he loves them all, really, it’s not being _docile_ that keeps John silent. It’s a raging, desperate hate.

Sherlock is not new. He’s Captain Rodriguez, Vivace, Yang, everyone John has loved but can never manage to keep. He’s hope that keeps a shifter going, hope that always wants but can never be satisfied.

John sits back on his heels and keeps his mouth shut. He’ll keep the memories of that man with the soft hands and nice way of saying “John”. He doesn’t want this slave-owner; doesn’t want to fight at the table for scraps of his affection with other shifters.

“You’re quiet, John,” Sherlock says. His brows are knit together in concern. “Are you not feeling well?”

“No,” John says. “No, sir.”

“I’m fine,” he adds. “Sir.”

Sherlock stares at him. He turns away to another shifter. “So, Preston,” he begins smoothly. “What do you think about my pavilion?”

John clenches his fists and reminds himself to stay silent, muzzles the part of him that wants to believe in Sherlock. He’s lying to them, John tells himself. He rented all of them for a day, spent a fortune in opium to make them more open. And he’s asking them now – what? About pavilions? Or about themselves? He plays them all like instruments, skims those white fingers across a shifter’s need for connection and teases bits of history out of them. He wants to know them but he doesn’t want to give them any part of himself. That’s all John needs to know.

“So, John,” Sherlock says abruptly, “Was it the Estersand or Rozzaria?”

“Estersand, sir,” John replies. His scar twinges. It’s not a big surprise that Sherlock can tell. He’s tanned, more so than any Arcadian could ever be.

It goes on like that for a while.

“So, John,” Sherlock says again, as though he hadn’t been listening to the feisty red-headed shifter’s account of life as a police shifter, “You were born in the Giza Plains, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” John says. Sherlock must have read his file. John doesn’t know why he has to ask all these questions, if he already knows the answers.

“How old were you when your village gave you to the army? Nine?”

It would have been nine, but Harriet had run away from home for a while. “Ten, sir.”

“Come here, John,” Sherlock pats his knee. “You can walk. I don’t want you hurting your knee any further.”

Ignoring the glares the other shifters shoot him, John gets to his feet. He makes to sink to his knees in front of Sherlock, but Sherlock drags him onto the wooden seat, wrapping his arms around John. He ends up with his face pressed into Sherlock’s collarbone, inhaling the faint smell of opium and Sherlock, legs tucked awkwardly under him.

“Poor John,” Sherlock murmurs. “You’re so untrusting. How many men have hurt you? Was it your last officer, John? How did he reject you? Was he closeted? Or was it because you were a shifter?”

“If you’ve read my file,” John says stiffly, as steadily as he can “then I don’t see why you’re bothering to ask all these questions.”

“I didn’t,” Sherlock says. “I can see that all in you. You’re easy and comfortable with the change, suggesting a certain acceptance towards shifting. A born shifter then. Your breed of wolf, amongst those colonies under Arcadia’s control, is most commonly found in the Giza Plains. They usually take boys young, and you’d been willing to go for your village, so you would have been conscripted one or two years earlier than the usual age of eleven. You’re docile and subservient, but extremely afraid of submission that is not voluntary, like the opium-induced fugue you were in just now. That means you are used to submission as a means of fitting in, suggesting a possible use of sex for appeasement or demonstrating usefulness to Phalanx members. But you’re scared of true vulnerability at the same time, so your experiences can’t have been too pleasant. Finally, you can’t think I missed how much you liked my voice praising you. Still you’re quick to turn on me, suggesting a desire for self-protection. The rawness of the hurt means that this rejection was recent, possibly your last officer.”

John is twenty-eight, and he’s spent nineteen years of his life as a slave in his Majesty Moriarty’s army. Sherlock has just summed up nineteen years of –everything, in two minutes. He sits very still and tries not feel so –turned inside out, like a linen shirt out fresh from the wash. It doesn’t work, and instead he’s left with a distinct sense of vertigo, like he can float out of Sherlock’s opium-filled embrace at any moment.

“Brilliant,” he says, surprising even himself. Sherlock is the smartest person John has ever met. “You’re brilliant and that was brilliant.”

Even Sherlock looks like he doesn’t quite understand. He stares at John like he’s never quite seen him before, and this Sherlock, the honestly bewildered one, is much more real than the indolent, lazy slave-owner John saw before.

It almost makes John think that that was worth it.

“So you’ve deduced me, sir,” John goes on. “Can we stop the games now? I’ll answer any question you want. Any of us will, sir, we’re good slaves. You don’t have to use opium, or hold us when we’re upset, or pretend you care. I’m a good slave and you just have to tell me what you want. Why isn’t that enough for you? ”

_Why can’t you leave me a bit of me for myself,_ is what he doesn’t say.

“Why do you have to be brilliant and – use it like that?” he finishes. Sherlock is really brilliant. No one has ever _seen_ John the way Sherlock has before. It’s galling, really, that someone who sees John so clearly uses this knowledge so carelessly.

Sherlock’s grip is tight on John. John is counting the number of strokes he might get, whether Sherlock might break his other leg as well, when Sherlock laughs shortly, breathlessly. “John,” he says, snappy and decisive, “I’ve decided to buy you. Would you like that?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EXPLOSIVE TENSION MUCH?!?!
> 
> This chapter went in a direction I didn't entirely expect it to. It's really dialogue-heavy, and Johnlock takes a darker turn here. There's quite a lot of exploration into John's psyche, and John-as-shifter began to speak for himself (yay!). I feel that the relationship between John and Sherlock becomes much more complicated here because of their relative social positions (slave and aristocrat). They are both much more damaged than canon!John and canon!Sherlock, but what makes the interaction between them special-that John kind of appreciates Sherlock and actually understands Sherlock, and Sherlock can never quite accurately read John - is still present. At least, that's what I hope I managed to keep. 
> 
> Also, SEEKING BETA HELP! This story is evolving in ways I'm entirely not expecting, and it would be great to have someone to bounce ideas off and discuss this story with. Do drop me a comment/message (A03 has the messaging system right? I hope it does) if you're interested, thanks!


	3. The Cruellest Month

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to back, both facing bullets. Both John and Sherlock come under fire.

"I want this one," Sherlock says imperiously. "You'll get him for me, right?" The man Sherlock is talking to chuckles, indulgent. His fingers twist the gaudy material of his robe, morphing red and blue snakes out of geometric patterns. John blinks and shivers, suddenly chilly from the sweat at the back of his neck. The effects of the opium are thinning, like a morning haze in the Estersand.

"I know you're a big boy, Sherlock, but these aren't for play. A good bite could tear a huge chunk out of you before the collar stops him. Maki, why is he even included?" The man snaps at the slaver, coddling turning into anger. Out of the corner of his eye, John sees Maki make a short bow and move towards John.

"You will _stop there_ ," Sherlock says coldly. It's abrupt and there's an empty moment that people get when no one knows how to respond. John is bewildered, struggling brain attempting to get into gear. Sherlock sounds serious.

"Oh, please," Sherlock says petulantly. "He's trained. And I want somebody that can actually fuck me so hard the whole corridor can hear it. Jerrik got a new slave, also, and I know he screams louder than he really feels because he wants us all to be jealous of him. It's awful."

Back in the Estersand, a native taught John a handsign. He made a fist with one hand and cupped it with another, and had blown a warbling birdsong out of it. "The lost bird," he explained. "The man who lost his mind." Whenever barrack life had gotten too much for John, he walked out of the door, found a quiet corner and amused himself with that.

Sherlock, John thinks, is a lost bird. He saw a bit of Sherlock just now, the unsettlingly sharp mind, and it is not this whiney man talking about - cock sizes, now - in front of him.

"He's harmless," Sherlock insists. A beat, and then a sly remark, tossed offhandedly in - "I could let you watch, sometimes."

"Oh," the man says faintly. "Sherlock, really." He considers it and sighs. "Your uncle would have my head," he says regretfully. "Especially if you bought an ex-military shifter."

"John-" Sherlock extends a hand, spreads his legs. "Come here and suck me off."

The man doesn't say anything. John wishes he was a bit more numb. He shuffles closer on his knees, fixing his attention on the embroidery on Sherlock's shirt.

Sherlock curls his hands in John's hair, pulls him forward. He can feel the slight tremble in Sherlock's fingers. Sherlock's legs, when John places hands on each of his inner thighs, are tensed. Sherlock doesn't feel like a horny man. He feels like Rodriguez after they'd lost a battle, or when he'd had to stop John mid blow-job and tell him that they would have to discharge John from the unit after all.

John lifts the hem of Sherlock's shirt and goes to work on the zipper of the pants underneath. This close, he can smell Sherlock through the opium at last. It doesn’t smell bad, at least.

Sherlock's hands don't let up as John takes him out of his pants. It's completely soft, and sits sadly in his palm. Sherlock seems even unhappier than John is. John's just glad that Sherlock is clean, even if there is a lot of wiry black hair he just knows is going to get in his mouth.

Is it John? Is it the watching men? Does John even want to give a good blowjob - would Sherlock fling him away if he was sucky at it?

He gets to work, businesslike.

\--

John's jaw is aching and there's drool going down the sides of his chin. Sherlock's only half-hard, and John has been at it for what feels like eternity.

"He's not very good," the man observes disapprovingly.

Sherlock sighs. The hands in John's hair tighten, tugging his head back with a sharp jerk that John can feel so hard right at the base of his head. John's teeth curl in a snarl he can't prevent, and - oh, oh so that's Sherlock's kink - John sees Sherlock's face flush, eyes widening at John's expression. "A bit rougher," Sherlock says tersely. A bit more shifter, he means.

John presses his face into the wiry mess of hair, against the stubborn cock, and growls. Many things happen at once. Sherlock jumps, he flings his head back with a crack, and thank Phoenix- something twitches.

Everything goes easier after that, like a hot knife through butter. John puts his hands on Sherlock's thighs, tenses them clawlike, and Sherlock quivers. He keeps up a growl in his throat as he noses Sherlock's cock and balls, and he swears to Phoenix Sherlock vibrates with the sound. He snaps his teeth shut right before he takes Sherlock into his mouth, and tastes pre-cum seeping from the tip, bitter against the roof of his mouth. When he howls, muffled, around Sherlock's cock, Sherlock lets out a hissed - bloody fuck, the first sound beyond stifled breathing that he makes, and comes convulsively down John's throat.

John really, really wants to spit it out, but Sherlock swoops a hand down, presses his mouth shut. Reluctantly, he does, absolutely not for the flush spoiling Sherlock's composure, rising red to his high cheekbones.

John's - army soldiers were kinky, but never this.

Snappishly, Sherlock negotiates over his head with the two watchers. John keeps his head down and wonders what he's in for. He really wants to rinse out his mouth.

 

\--

 

"Shift," Sherlock says curtly, once both men have left the pavilion. John blinks from his place on the floor.

Sherlock swings his head around to look at him, and too late, john realizes that he's furious, face locked down into a cold mask, color entirely drained from his cheeks.

He keeps looking as John's collar fires up. The difference between a change made willingly and a forced one is that you have time to get used to it, can take it slow and easy as you molt and a whole new world arises around you, haunting through the eyes of a wolf. A change made unwillingly is too fast, too much, bones snapping rather than melting soft, everything you hate about the wolf boiling over in the time it takes you to fall over and hit the ground.

“You know,” Sherlock says, conversationally, as though he hadn’t cut John down to size - “I think you should stay like that.”

John thinks that he has been too complacent.

"Come on," Sherlock says, when he's down the steps of the pavilion and John hasn't moved yet. He raises his wrist, and John's glyph gleams on the metal band around it, fresh from Maki's transfer to Sherlock, colour fading as the flared-up glyph fades from its electric wakening.

John gets to his feet, unsteady. He's used to that, and it's always easier to be out of sorts on four feet. He follows Sherlock to the airship.

 

\--

 

“Sherlock,” the man says, as they enter the airship. John chokes back a bark, stunned. King Moriarty looks up at Sherlock, thin smile on his face. He closes the datapad he’s been reading and passes it to a bodyguard, who bites down more carefully on his cigarette before reaching out to take it.

The capsule closes behind John and Sherlock.

“What a stunning thing you’ve got,” Moriarty praises, dropping his eyes to stare at John. “A wolf shifter. Tell me, Sherlock - how many times did you have to blow Mandrake to be able to afford this?”

John bristles, and Sherlock says in a falsely even tone, “I didn’t.”

Moriarty raises an eyebrow, whistles. The bodyguard laughs.

“Ain’t that something, Sebastian?” Moriarty grins at him. “The old man is getting soft. He should have driven a harder bargain.”

“Get out of my airship,” Sherlock says. “It’s none of your business what I do.”

“Getting uppity, princess,” the bodyguard sneers. He blows smoke at Sherlock - Sherlock actually flinches, going even whiter. He presses the door lock button, but nothing’s working. Moriarty shrugs elaborately, reaches for the controls behind him, and sets the ship up for takeoff.

Something’s going very wrong here. That wasn’t just tobacco, that was opium as well.

“Oh, Sherlock,” Moriarty murmurs, dropping his voice low. “You know I care.” He watches Sherlock, eyes narrowed. “I don’t want to see you doing the wrong things, that’s all.”

“Put that out,” Sherlock says sharply to Sebastian, who smiles.

“You’ve been very disobedient, Sherlock,” Moriarty announces. The airship jerks, lifts off the ground. Sherlock flings a white-knuckled hand out to steady himself.

Moriarty presses a button, and the panels slide open, revealing a view of the Arcadian forest falling away beneath them, only a faint sheen remaining to mark where the glass is. Even the floor beneath them vanishes, and John jumps. Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut.

“What,” he says, between gritted teeth, “Do you want?”

“Nothing,” Moriarty replies. He watches the ground, smiling.

 

\--

 

Sebastian smokes cigarette after cigarette, and the higher the airship goes, the more John wants to pace. He shakes his shoulders restlessly, trying to get the smell away. It’s dizzying, all of it, the red-brown of Old Archades shrinking to a child’s toy beneath their eyes, terrace after terrace of tea plantations moving in constant parade before them as the airship steadily rises up to the top of the White Hill.

He whines low in his throat, and Sherlock, whose eyes have been squeezed shut, curses. He’s leaning entirely against the wall now, looking like he’s falling over, ready to tumble like a broken doll into the Old City below. There’s sweat standing out on his forehead. John smells the rancid odour of it, heavy and bitter.

“It’s always your choice,” Moriarty states. He’s given up any pretence of watching Arcadia, and is instead staring at Sherlock with fascination. “Come over here, Sherlock.”

Sherlock rests his shaking hands on the glass, presses his forehead against it. He’s breathing faster and faster now. A foot moves, kicks at the ground.

“It’s only a matter of time, Sherlock,” Moriarty tells him. “Just one - what harm will it do? You don’t need to feel so sad all the time.”

Sherlock opens glassy eyes. There’s a look in his eyes that John recognizes, the same look John saw on a cougar shifter whose leg had been blown off by a mine. He clutched his leg, looked at John, and there was knowledge in his eyes, knowledge that he’d reached the end of his usefulness on earth but he didn’t want to, didn’t want to, didn’t want to be left behind by the rest of the world -

John makes himself turn around, bites into Sherlock’s leg before Sherlock can move away. He yells hoarsely.

“Oh god,” Moriarty says, surprised and fascinated.

Sherlock drops to a crouch, sinks gracelessly to the floor. He tangles a hand in John’s collar, pulls him closer. “You mad thing,” he says, voice weak but furious. John doesn’t resist, looks him right in the eye.

“Should I shoot that thing for you, Sherlock?” Sebastian asks.

Sherlock ignores him, glares at John. The hand gripping John’s collar, out of sight of Moriarty and Sebastian, gives him a quick stroke. Apologetic. John knows what’s coming this time.

He howls as pain lights through him, glyphs on the collar flaring to life like a madman’s concoction. John tumbles in space, tumbles and hurts. He clings on to the memory of that stroke, holds on to the sight of Sherlock shivering and sick, helpless. He had a reason, Sherlock isn’t just a madman. He isn’t and John really doesn’t know what he will do if Sherlock really is crazy.

Sherlock stops and starts in fits, panting, apparently too weak to sustain the magic. John prays Moriarty buys it.

Somewhere along the way, the shuttle lands. Moriarty kicks John on his way out, smiling. Sebastian must have left somewhere. John doesn't really care.

“Why did you do that?” Sherlock asks. There’s fresh air coming in, at last. Sherlock bends over John, buries his face in his fur. “You don’t even know me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... So I went overseas for a while and came back, decided to pick this up again. ;) I really will reply those who have emailed me about beta-ing-I'm so sorry and thank you so much for your offers. This chapter was really hard to write, getting it down in sections was the best way it came out. I rewrote it at least five times. Any tips on revising/getting past roadblocks in plot, anyone? 
> 
> Also, I know Sherlock seemed out of character for the first few sections, but I hope the part with Moriarty cleared up a bit of why he's behaving so strangely!


	4. Fragments Dim Of Lovely Forms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John, Sherlock.

Sherlock drags himself back to the controls and pilots the ship away. John closes his eyes, and when he opens them the ship has docked at an apartment. The jingling of keys wakes John up. “You should shift back,” Sherlock says briefly, then disappears through the hatch.

\--

The apartment is made obviously for a shifter. It's a big room with reed mats in the corner and a pile of blankets, in place of a bed. The table is low on the ground, enough for a wolf to reach. The doors in the room have hatches in them, probably to let the shifter through.  Most of all, the heavy, musky smell of a fellow shifter lingers in the air. Canine.  
  
Sherlock drops his keys on the table and turns around to face John.  
  
"Come on," Sherlock says, eyes bright. "Hit me".  
  
"You're crazy," John breathes. Briefly, he wonders if he’s in fact stuck in the medical tent back in the Estersand, dreaming fever dreams. He just got bought by a man whom King Moriarty was tempting with opium in an airship.

None of this makes sense.  
  
"Yes", Sherlock says. He smiles. "I am".  
  
"If you don't," Sherlock continues, "I'm going to go in and get the stash he's got hidden inside and smoke it all until I can't move. And if that happens, I'm going to shoot myself, because it's the third time I'm going off opium and I can't be arsed to do it all over again.”  
  
"I can't hit you," John points out. It’s the only logical thing he can say. "You can shock me." _Like you’ve done twice before_ drifts between them, unvoiced.  
  
"Oh," Sherlock says, smile turning odd. He gestures to John's collar. "I'm going to disable the shock mechanism," Sherlock says. "You can kill me and run off, where the city guards will hunt you down and string you by your guts on the gates. And Moriarty will take all your pack members into slavery. Including your sister."

  
"Or", Sherlock adds, "You can hit me like I'm telling you to."  
  
"Are you a mitchmaker?" John asks incredulously. Only people who can alter glyphs can tamper with shifter collars.  
  
"Oh, John," Sherlock says. "Yes. Come here."

John shuffles closer, because there’s nothing he can do. Sherlock’s eyes are electric, feverish blue, and he watches John with an intensity that makes him want to back away. His cheekbones are too gaunt, John decides. He shifts his gaze down to the open collar of Sherlock’s white tunic, which is crumpled and sweaty. His collarbones protrude obscenely.

Sherlock raises a hand to John’s collar. John stands uncomfortably still, aware of how Sherlock still smells like opium and blood. He pretends that his shoulders are not hunching as the collar slowly heats up around his neck.

“We should get your leg fixed up,” John says woodenly. _And get you a bath_ , he thinks. Sherlock’s clothes have a lived-in, rumpled, sweaty smell. He stares at Sherlock’s chin and wonders how old Sherlock is, exactly. He’s entirely smooth.

Sherlock’s fingers scrape John’s neck, raising goosebumps. John closes his eyes and prays to the Phoenix that this isn’t some trick. Collar-release taunts are very common, he knows. Trick the shifter into standing still, and then set off the tamper safeguards on the shifter. His captains had forbidden it in their barracks, but John had still received his fair share of offers.

But then, Sherlock could also have shocked him for refusing to come closer. Or – Sherlock could have. Without a reason. Sherlock could have done it without any reason. He did it easily enough, the first time. When John got down and sucked his cock, and Sherlock got turned on only when John behaved like an animal. John’s smart enough to know that it was shame, shame at being unreasonably turned on by a shifter and having to show it to Mandrake so Mandrake would buy John for Sherlock. But he hurt John because he was ashamed, and John can’t forget that.

John stares past Sherlock, at the docking hatch from where they entered. In Arcadia, the height of a living residence determines the value of the place. For a shifter to be able to afford an apartment like this, the shifter must be a high-ranking public servant. Either that, or this is Sherlock’s apartment, and he keeps a shifter.

John doesn’t want to think about that.

"I’m done," Sherlock says. He drops his hands and stands in front of John, unmoving.  
  
The collar is still slightly hot, but other than that John can’t feel anything different.

“I can’t hurt you,” Sherlock adds. He looks down at John, cocks his head. “Well?”

John could - could do anything. And Sherlock wouldn't be able to stop him. No one would. It’s like a punch to his stomach. Unbelievable.

“I don’t believe you,” John says flatly.  
  
Sherlock scowls. He takes a step back, than turns to walk to the closet on the side of the room. He opens it and disappears inside, flinging clothes out of the wardrobe.

John drifts closer.

Sherlock is patting the back of the wooden closet now. John flinches as a sudden sheen of silver rises out of the dark wood, seeping out in squiggly patterns. They gather around Sherlock’s palms. Irritably, he bats them away, smooths them out to flip through them. He chooses a few and rubs them out with a thumb.

The cabinet falls open.

John leaps at Sherlock, pulling him away as bags tumble to the ground.

  
“How much do you weigh?” Sherlock grumbles, breathless. “They overfeed you.”

“I turn into a wolf fairly regularly,” John notes. “It’s called muscle mass.”  
  
“Are you going to keep me pinned here?” Sherlock asks, ignoring John’s last comment.

John sits up, glances over at the bags. He freezes.

“I told you,” Sherlock says. He stretches a hand out, groping for a bag.

John pushes his hand away. “You’re not doing that,” he says flatly. He recognizes the brown mass inside the transparent bags.

“Stop me,” Sherlock says, as though it’s obvious. He throws himself across the floor suddenly, but John’s a war-trained wolf. He body-checks Sherlock, takes the impact solidly. Sherlock grunts in pain, rolls back.

“I’m desperate, you know,” Sherlock says conversationally. He looks up at John. “I don’t think you can stop me.”

“Bollocks,” John says, before he can stop himself. This pasty, bony, shaking man against John? Even if John’s other leg was crippled as well, he’s pretty sure he can keep Sherlock from getting past him.

Sherlock gets to his feet unsteadily. John waits until he’s standing straight, swaying, before launching himself at Sherlock, high enough for his shoulder to tuck solidly into Sherlock’s stomach. They go flying across the room into the table.

“ _Fuck_!” Sherlock swears, arching in pain. He grabs his back.

“Do it again,” he wheezes. John watches in disbelief as Sherlock actually laughs.

\--

By the end of the next hour, John’s exhausted. He has Sherlock flat on his back on the reed mats, using his own body weight to pin Sherlock down. He aches from the strain of trying _not_ to hurt Sherlock, who has become steadily more inventive as he tries to get past John.  
  
Sherlock has stopped laughing. He claps his hand to his stomach occasionally, wincing. Cramps, John guesses. Their skin sticks together uncomfortably, smelling of sweat.

“It's not enough,” Sherlock says in frustration. “It's not.” With shaking fingers, he reaches out to John's collar.  
  
Something opens. John can't think of a better way to say it, but the collar - swings open. Sherlock crowds at the edges of his mind, lost, nauseous, ravenous. For a second, John drowns in anxiety, because his bones and muscles are melting unless he gets to that bag and takes another hit. Then he’s himself again, except at the edges he’s someone else entirely.

Like something bleeding into him, sharper when the edges of their skin touch.  
  
Like wolf to wolf, shoulder to shoulder, loping across the plains in perfect formation.  
  
Sherlock shudders. But the look in his eyes sharpens, focuses, his hands reaching up to shove at John’s shoulders. John gets partway up before he realizes what he’s doing.  
  
John slams himself into Sherlock, pinning him to the ground. "No," he rasps. "No, don't close that. You want to stay clean? I can stop you. I can stop you every time."  
  
It gets stronger the more contact they have, John realizes. Everywhere they touch, John is Sherlock. He shoves himself against the pain and the furious desire with every bit of willpower he has. And after so many years as a slave in the Arcadian army barracks, John happens to have  a lot of that.

Sherlock’s arms come up around him, fingers digging into John’s back through the flimsy slave tunic. He presses his face against John’s neck. “It’s going to take a while,” Sherlock mumbles. He sounds more sane, already.

John curls his arm protectively around Sherlock. How can he explain that, even sunken in misery and ridiculous _want_ , this is the closest that he’s gotten to another person since he left his village?

Sherlock is right. It does take a while.

But it does get easier, eventually. Sherlock cards his hand through John’s hair when the worst of it is over, and, tired from fighting, John falls asleep.  
  
\--  
  
John jolts awake when the door opens. "Oh, for god's sake, Sherlock," a voice says wearily. A bit worried. "What is it-"  
  
The man freezes when he sees John, hand reaching for the gun holstered at his waist. John rolls over, putting himself between Sherlock and the man.  
  
"Who are you?" the man snaps.  
  
Sherlock stirs. "Stop it," he says crossly. He pulls himself away from John and sits up, leaving nothing but a faint - ghostlike - there's no more connection, and John's gut clenches at the loss.  
  
A hand comes down on the side of his head. John blinks, relieved. It's faint, but it's still there. The knowledge that there's someone else alive in this universe.  
  
"I bought him," Sherlock says, by way of explanation.  
  
The man sniffs the air. "You're hurt," he says tersely.  
  
Sherlock's leg, John realizes. He makes to sit up, but Sherlock says "stay", and John stays.  
  
 "I was waiting for _you_ ," Sherlock says peevishly.  
  
"Forgive me for having a day job," the man says dryly. John hears the clink as the man sets the gun down on the table. He walks over, footsteps muffled by the reed matting.  
  
"John," Sherlock calls. "There's money on the table. Go and get some dinner for all of us."  
  
John gets to his feet. The man stands there, looking at him. He's wearing the dark blue uniform of the City Militia, and the barred ranks declare him a district Captain. "Lestrade," the man offers, extending a hand. He's taller than John, and has more muscle mass.  
  
John nods slowly. It feels unfamiliar and strange to take Lestrade's hand. He'd rather pull Lestrade close and exchange smells like shifters do, but this is Arcadia. Not a shifter village.  
  
"How does kebab sound? There's a kebab stall on the first level," Lestrade tells him. "Just find the lift and take it all the way down. The lift is right down the hallway."  
  
Sherlock's eyes flicker to John, but he doesn't say anything.  
  
John knows a dismissal when he sees one.  
  
\--  
  
When the lift opens at ground level, John steps out into what looks like another world. The modern furnishings of the ground above have given way to old red-brick buildings that loom above. He’s in the underbelly of one of these buildings, with criss-crossing stone rafters abovehead. The paving stones are old and worn, geometric patterns faded. Grass grows from between them.

This place smells of shifters. He’s in Old Arcadia, then. The shifter buildings always extend into Old Arcadia, he remembers. Because all shifter business is down in the Old City.

Lanterns, hung at intervals, provide light. There are groups of people gathered around them, dressed in shifter attire of loose pants and vests. Some even have collars around their neck.

John could walk away. He could walk away and disappear in this crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say? Tried my best to tackle the subject of addiction. Hope I didn't misrepresent it. And finally, finally, finally things get clearer.


End file.
